Marvel Comics have revealed the cover for the special edition of their Siege series that they'll be giving retailers participating in their controversial exchange program, and... well, it's dated and another dig at DC's Blackest Night promotion. Oh dear.

Holy sales war, io9ers! Marvel Comics is offering retailers a rare issue of its new mega-event…
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For those who missed it, Marvel last week announced a promotion wherein they would allow comic retailers to mail in covers from unsold DC comics in exchange for special editions of an issue of Marvel's current Siege crossover series in a ratio of 50 DCs for 1 Marvel. In case that wasn't enough shit-stirring, the only DC titles allowed in the promotion were those DC had massively increased orders on as part of their Blackest Night crossover, thanks to the offer of freebie rings tying in with the storyline. Newly-promoted Marvel Vice President Tom Brevoort explained the thinking on his Twitter account, causing even more outrage:

We heard from a number of retailers who got stuck with books chasing rings and decided to do something. We're not making any money on the deal, but we are helping our retailer partners during a tough economic time. Making sure that our retailers can keep the doors open if they tied up a lot of cash on inventory they can't move. We're doing this because we're in the business of selling content rather than Cracker Jack prizes.

(You could ask whether the idea of helping retailers and selling content crosses over into asking those same retailers to order seven comics they know nothing about other than length and price, as April's Marvel Comics solicitations ask them to do, but that may be missing the point of the diss.)

Interestingly enough, Marvel's offer now has this addendum attached: "No second printings are accepted as part of this promotion." Because they're all about helping retailers keep the doors open, but only if they got burnt the first time.